Interesting quiz. I only scored a 70%. I would certainly have trouble naming the 13 oil and gas companies that are bigger than ExxonMobil.

One fact that the major oil and gas companies keep touting as a positive is something that I believe is actually quite negative - insiders own less than 5% of the stock in the company. They are managers with interests other than the best interests of the stockholders. Their compensation is based on metrics that might not be best for the long term health of the company.

I think it is very telling that ExxonMobil has poured more than $118 billion of its capital in the past five years into stock purchase plans. The main purpose of such plans is to bump the stock price - usually temporarily. If they really wanted to return the money to the investors - especially tax exempt pension funds, they would raise the dividends, not buy back stock.

ExxonMobil is not the only major making that choice. From my point of view it really makes it clear that their message of "do not raise our taxes, we need the money for investing in future energy" a blatant lie.

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